


New Beginning of Many Things

by ladyoneill



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshee Lydia Martin, F/M, Homecoming, Memories, Werewolf Conferences & Conventions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4582344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/pseuds/ladyoneill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the first werewolf conference in decades, Lydia meets someone never forgotten who just wants to come home, and old memories spark new feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Beginning of Many Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raktajinos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raktajinos/gifts).



> A new pairing for me though I've written both Lydia and Chris before. Recipient asked for an older Lydia, which was fun for me to write. All from Lydia's POV and open ended, it's a first meeting in a long time, maybe something's there emotionwise, and maybe something new can grow kind of fic. I hope it's okay!

Sitting in the lobby of the Grange Holborn Hotel, Lydia sips her tea as she reads through the conference agenda on her tablet. The meet and greet starts in about ten minutes, followed by dinner. The important business doesn't begin until the next morning, and she knows she's overbooked, but everyone wants to discuss vital issues with the representative of the most unique pack in the world. Or just gawk at her.

This is the first time the majority of packs have held a conference since the days after the Great War, and even then it was only the European packs with a few of the more important ones in the States. After those almost halcyon days of the 1920s, the Great Depression kept most from traveling, followed by World War II, and then...well, technology had come close to exposing their secret. Hunters used telephones and radios and airplanes to track and find the wolves as fast as they could hide.

By the time the Internet rolled out, they didn't dare congregate in large numbers. Since the Hale fire, most packs didn't even live together anymore.

Still...there are too many issues now to deal with by skype and conference calls, and after the recent truce with the largest hunter families, they've dared to meet.

The hunters know, though, which is why the werewolves chose a large hotel full of humans. Truce or no, there's still very little trust.

Sighing, she finishes her tea as an email notification pops up on her screen. Curious, she switches over to that program and opens the new message, then frowns. A meeting with a hunter has been added to her agenda for after dinner tonight.

It could be a trap, but she's one of the few non-wolf representatives and is no danger to hunters. Lydia types her acceptance, then slips the tablet in her navy Fendi bag and rises to head up to the floor where the conference is being held.

At twenty-six, she's as beautiful as she was at sixteen, but there's a maturity about her that makes her appear even older. No longer dressing in flippy short skirts and barely there tops, she's wearing a pale green skirt to her knees and matching jacket. Simple emeralds adorn her ears, and sensible but sexy black pumps her feet, after she realized years ago that her ridiculously high heels are impractical for life as a banshee in a werewolf pack.

Plastering a smile on her face, she enters the conference room, snags a glass of white wine from a waiter, and starts to mingle.

Later, seated at one of the more prominent tables, she spends the dinner hour observing and listening to those surrounding her, only speaking when directly addressed. By the end of the meal, she's assessed half the werewolves in the room, noted the four emissary representatives, and the most wary of the participants and those few who are downright scared.

She's the lone "other" supernatural, so she attracts a lot of attention, partially due to the nature of her pack and Alpha as well, but has long since learned to deflect too personal questions. As she nibbles on a bowl of traditional trifle and listens to the closing talk with half an ear, she wonders at the hunter who wishes to meet with her.

She doesn't feel worried or scared. She can fight as well as any hunter and, if necessary, she can scream and drive them unconscious long enough for her to escape. Someone's always dying, after all.

After the dinner ends and she says goodnight to her companions, she heads to the small room where her meeting is taking place, wondering if she should have asked the name of the hunter, but then her thoughts turn to her half-finished dissertation that's due in rough draft form in less than two months, and how this conference, while extremely important is also interrupting her work.

Damn Scott and his puppy dog eyes. A smiles crosses her face, then she composes herself, determined to make this meeting brief so she can spend two hours testing her hypothesis before going to bed.

The small room holds a couch, a small conference table with six chairs, and a man with his back to her, standing at the windows, looking out at the London night. Lydia closes the door noisily, and he turns.

And her heart skips a beat.

It's been over eight years since he left Beacon Hills, and a lot shorter time since she last wondered if he was alive, well, happy.

"Mr. Argent."

A small, sad smile crosses his face as he walks towards her--looking older, with a few more lines on his face, a bit more grey in his hair, but still as handsome as she remembers. He holds out his hand, and she takes it, letting her fingers linger in his.

"I think you can call me Chris now, Lydia."

She can feel herself blushing a bit and, flustered, drops his hand and sinks onto the couch, ignoring her earlier thought to take the head of the table.

He joins her, leaning comfortably into the corner, one leg crossed over the other, and while he appears relaxed and confident, she can see the tension in the corners of his eyes and lips.

"We knew the hunters knew of this conference. A few packs refused to send a representative, still too wary. Are you here to cause trouble?" 

For an instant he looks startled, then he recovers, blandly replying, "As blunt as ever."

"No one's ever accused me of prevarication."

"True. I hear that you've returned to Beacon Hills after seven years at Stanford and MIT to finish your dissertation, the second one. I'm not surprised that you're so far ahead of where most students your age are."

"No reason to dilly dally." Shrugging, Lydia crosses one leg over the other and turns slightly towards him. "You didn't answer my question."

"No, I'm not here to cause trouble. I'm not here officially at all. I just..." He frowns slightly. "After I found Kate, dealt with Kate," he says softly. "I thought about returning to Beacon Hills then, but something else drew me away, then another thing, and, to be honest, the memories of my life there were hard to deal with." Chris looks away for a moment. "I was surprised to hear you were returning. When I heard you went across country to MIT, I thought 'good for her'."

"The plan was always to return. Once I attain the credentials I need, I can do my research, write my proofs anywhere. The PhD in physics is important for the supernatural world, but math is where my heart is, and Beacon Hills is home. All my friends, my family," she stresses, "are there. I went the farthest away, but everyone left for a while at different times. We all had to grow up and experience college, be normal, but we all knew we were returning. Even Stiles, who still is the only pure human in the pack. The beacon's still active, after all. We're needed."

Slowly he turns back to her and there's sympathy in his expressive eyes. "Even away from there, I followed what was happening. You've survived so much."

"Not all of us." The banshee in her knows all their names, every one they've lost, every human who died due to something supernatural, her friends, her lovers. But, the pack has grown as well, taking in two young Omegas, the surviving chimeras, even Isaac who returned two years before. And, now, Cora's moving back with her mate and daughter, returning the Hales to Beacon Hills.

She knows that Scott hopes that will bring Derek out of his wandering as well.

"So, why this meeting, Chris?"

Silent for a minute, he finally clasps his hands together and tightens his lips before answering. "Although it's painful, I want to return home, but after the war with the hunter clans five years ago, we're not welcome in Beacon Hills. I'd like you to intercede with Scott."

Lydia feels her heart flutter again. "Chris, that never meant you." She reaches out, takes his wrist, feels his racing pulse beneath her fingers.

"I'm still a hunter," he grits out.

"You're not a threat." At his momentary indignant look, she can't help but softly laugh. "I'm sure you're as deadly as ever, but we all saw you change over those two years. From hunting Derek and Scott, to threatening them, to siding with them, to teaching Scott, to..." Her breath catches in her throat. Even nearly nine years later, thinking of Allison is so painful. "Even after Allison died, you helped us. I can't count the number of times Scott has mentioned you, wondering where you are and if you're okay. You even broke ties with Isaac."

His eyes drop, but he doesn't try to pull away from her. "Hunting Kate, having to...put her down, it made me question everything even more than after I first learned what she and Gerard had done to the Hales. Their blood was mine."

"Ally's blood was yours," she retorts, squeezing his wrist, and watches as he twists that wrist, sliding his fingers between and around her own.

Her breath catches again, memories of her teenage crush on him returning full force. His smile, when he directs it her way, is still a bit sad.

She wonders if it will always be that way. "You've lost so much."

"So have you. I heard about Deputy Parrish's death three years ago. As I said, I kept tabs on all of you. You were close?"

"Not together by then, still friends, though." Lost to his own out-of-control abilities. The memories of their brief love affairs are still painful, and she hasn't dated seriously since. "I'm not sure a banshee is meant to find a life-long love. Sometimes all I know for sure is death. And math," Lydia adds, trying to lighten the mood.

Chris' fingers tighten a fraction. "That's nonsense."

"The only two other banshees I knew both lost their great loves too early. Jordan wasn't the one, but I've lost every man I've been with in some way."

"I always thought you and Stiles..."

Shaking her head, Lydia smiles slightly. "Maybe the fear I would lose him is why I never took that step. He's my best friend. I think his death would kill me. If we were lovers?" After swallowing hard at the very thought, she turns the subject to him. "And, you? Anyone special?"

"No. Several offers. The Argent name still means something in certain circles, but I'm not going to make another alliance like that."

Oh.

"You and Mrs. Argent?"

"Arranged marriages are still common in hunter families."

"Wow."

"I loved her, though, still miss her. Maybe a year later, with the way my beliefs about werewolves shifted, if she'd turned then..." 

"One of those reasons your beliefs shifted though, was her death, right?" Because she'd known that, even at sixteen. Observation was her thing, after all.

"Yes, you're probably right, but we've gotten off the subject. So, I'll be welcome in Beacon Hills?"

"Yes. You know, we hunt down rogue werewolves, too. Part of the truce is to allow us to police our own as well as allowing hunters to continue to do the job they've been trained for. I think one of the proudest moments in all our lives is when we realized to the extent Allison's code has spread since the war. It helped that so many of the surviving hunting families that abide by it didn't take part in those battles."

"We've done a piss poor job of policing ourselves, unlike so many of the reputable packs. Sometimes I wonder just when we all lost our focus."

"I can't spend any time on that," Lydia admits. "All I can do is attend to the future and making the world safe for all my friends' children."

"Not your own?"

Shrugging again, she realizes they're still holding hands and it feels good. Distracted by that, it takes her a moment to remember his question, then flushes a bit again. "I haven't found the right partner, not that I need one, but I also have a dissertation to finish and a Field's Medal to win."

A grin fills his face and she feels herself grinning back. "I'm glad you're not hiding your intelligence anymore."

"I always knew you could see through my superficial front."

"Trained observer."

They laugh lightly and their hands squeeze together.

"And I always enjoyed talking with you. You were always so bright and..." A dull red creeps up his neck and, for a moment, he tries to pull his hand free, but she won't let him. "Lydia..."

"If anyone else from the McCall Pack had been the representative, would you have approached them?"

"...No."

"There's something here, Chris." She quickly forestalls the argument she sees forming in his eyes and on his lips, her own concerns that this is too soon, they don't know each other anymore. "I'm not a child or a teenager. I don't care how old you are. When you come home to Beacon Hills, I'd like to meet you for a drink. I'd like to see if we're more than Allison's best friend and father."

"Lydia."

"That's not a denial."

Bemusement fills his eyes and he lifts their joined hands to his lips, brushing them over her knuckles. A tingle lances through her. "I also always admired how bold you were."

"And I admired just about everything about you once you stopped hunting my friends." Lydia smiles honestly, then proves her boldness by leaning forward and pressing her mouth to his in a brief but still lingering kiss. "Something to think about as you head home. I'll be there in four days."

"Do you still have the same number?" At her nod, he continues, "I'll call you about that drink."

"You better. And it will be good, very good, to have you back where you belong."

"As long as the beacon is active, I can be of help," he says, and she wonders if he really thinks he needs to prove his worth to her and earn his place.

Hopefully she can show him that neither are necessary, but she knows Chris needs to help as much as she does. It's a part of who they are.

"That's one reason, not the most important one to me." Rising to her feet, Lydia finally breaks their physical connection and immediately misses it.

"I didn't plan on this," Chris murmurs.

"I try to plan everything. Maybe that's why none of my relationships last," she replies with a flirty smile. "See you soon, Chris."

"Very soon, Lydia."

Lighter than she's felt in a long time, Lydia leaves the meeting room and pulls out her phone to call Scott. Not to ask his permission, but to let him know that one of their own is finally coming home.

It feels like a new beginning of many things.

End


End file.
